FOR THE PRICE OF A CUP OF COFFEE



Gentle reader,
 This wee story my be just that a tale to make you feel good or bad depending on your attitude at the time your read this But read on and I'll  share a wee secret and the end.

"We enter a little coffeehouse with a friend of mine and give our order. While we're approaching our table two people come in and they go to the counter -


'Five coffees, please. Two of them for us and three suspended'

They pay for their order, take the two and leave. I ask my friend:

... 'What are those 'suspended' coffees ?'

'Wait for it and you will see'

Some more people enter. Two girls ask for one coffee each, pay and go. The next order was for seven coffees and it was made by three lawyers - three for them and four 'suspended'. While I still wonder what's the deal with those 'suspended' coffees I enjoy the sunny weather and the beautiful view towards the square in front of the café. Suddenly a man dressed in shabby clothes who looks like a beggar comes in through the door and kindly asks

'Do you have a suspended coffee ?'

It's simple - people pay in advance for a coffee meant for someone who can not afford a warm beverage. The tradition with the suspended coffees started in Naples, but it has spread all over the world and in some places you can order not only a suspended coffee, but also a sandwich or a whole meal."

Now you may choose to ignore this story or tale (remember I gave you a choice) .
 But this is true there are 46.2 Million Americans (not third world countries) but right here as we use to say in "the land of the Big BX"! who live in abject poverty. To give you a wee example right here in Indiana families receive from the state $16.00 in food stamps! So we can feel good about ourselves cause we are helping the "poor , lazy, hippies and other riff Raff that collect unemployment checks for doing nothing nothing. While real Americans like Sara Palin work for a living (if only half time!)

 Big Banks  and Wall street millionares who colluded made vast profits and forced thousands lost their homes. Rough estimate is put at over one Million. and you are force fed that the banks are too big to fail and how many responsible have faced a jury on their peers? Zero!  
And then to make things laughable 6 senators are planing to filibuster the Gun safety Bill coming up for a vote. (so are your children safe?) . And I keep shouting the the sacred Second amendment is not the Second Commandment! 

Europe vs.USA Our Children the next generation

Former president of South Africa and renowned anti-apartheid activist, Nelson Mandela, once said “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” What does the record of child care in the United States reveal about our soul, as a society?


Comparisons to Europe reveal major shortcomings in how we, as a nation, treat our children.

Even before the Great Recession, U.S. families have struggled to afford adequate child care, especially in households where primary caregivers work outside the home. People in countries like France and Denmark may pay higher taxes, but they get much more for their money, especially in terms of family and child care. Generous social welfare policies enable European women to more easily strike the balance between home and work life, their children enjoy better health outcomes and higher levels of educational achievement, and far fewer of them are forced to live in poverty.



European social welfare provides crucial support during the first months of infancy, when a child is most vulnerable and in need of care and parental bonding. The United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) has set the following standards for maternity leave: (1) maternity leave should last for at least 14 weeks, but 18 weeks is preferred; (2) maternity leave should cover two thirds of a parent’s earnings, at minimum; and (3) family members should be covered by medical insurance. Nearly all European countries meet or exceed the ILO standard for weeks of maternity leave. All, except for Ireland and the UK, exceed the standard for wage replacement.

Many European countries also have parental leaves that allow either parent to stay home and care for the child after maternity benefits run out. For example, Finland allows 18 weeks maternity, and 26 weeks of parental leave at 70 percent salary, with additional parental leave at a flat rate until the child is three years old. To ensure gender equality, some countries have a “father quota” – leave time set exclusively for fathers, which can last as long as three months in Iceland. In Germany, couples receive a parental allowance for 2 to 12 months, and single parents can receive a parental allowance as income replacement for up to 14 months. The parental allowance replaces some 67 percent of the parents’ income; for those living on a low income, the rate increases to 100 percent.


The U.S., by contrast, does not meet any of the ILO standards. A recent study by McGill University found that we are one of four countries (out of 173 studied) that does not provide paid maternity leave. The other three are Liberia, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland. Instead, we allow only 12 weeks unpaid leave, but only for companies that employ 50 or more employees (and must meet other requirements as well). As a result, only 60 percent of American workers are eligible for maternity leave, and only a quarter of American employers give fully paid leaves of absence to give birth, usually fewer than 14 weeks.


European countries also support care in the very early stages of child development. The French government sponsors one of the most generous programs, offering eight hours daily of free child care for 2- to 6-year olds. Child care centers exist for children under 2-years old, and national and local governments pay about 75 percent of the cost. In addition to child care facilities, family allowances exist in all European countries to subsidize families with children through cash payments. In Finland, up to 85 percent of the cost of raising a child is subsidized this way. European family allowances are worth about 10% of average wages per child. Their impact is greatest for large and low-income families.


The United States has no national child care program, and we do not offer family assistance. We rely instead on private sources, some targeted state-subsidized programs, and tax breaks.


Finally, European governments heavily support and subsidize preschool. Among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, 84 percent of kids in early childhood education attend publicly funded programs, while in the U.S., only 55 percent do. The U.S ranks #28 in the OECD in the percentage of 4-year-olds in early childhood education. The typical starting age for early education in Europe is 3 years old, as opposed to 4 in the U.S., and education-only programs in Europe are usually delivered by a qualified teacher with a formal curriculum.


Perhaps more disturbing, the rate of U.S. children who lack more than four of eight key educational possessions – a desk to study, a quiet place to work, a computer for schoolwork, educational software, an internet connection, a calculator, a dictionary, and school textbooks – is very poor, the fifth worst in the OECD. In countries like Finland, all students receive a free meal daily, as well as health care, transportation, learning materials, and counseling.


The next time your hear someone argue that “big government” programs drain the economy, and are inefficient and ineffective – or, that European socialism promotes laziness – remind them that infant mortality in the U.S. is the fourth worst among OECD countries (just after Mexico, Turkey, and the Slovak Republic); that we have the 5th worst rates of child mortality and the sixth worst rates of low birth weight. Remind them that Europeans enjoy universal health benefits, while over 50 million of our citizens remain uninsured and thus lack access to care—including pregnant women, babies, and young children. And remind them that these are not just numbers -- they’re a serious wake-up call to do right by our children.

We can make History

Big News: Julius Genachowski Is History


The FCC chairman is stepping down — and we need to seize the moment to push for a chair who won’t cater to corporate interests.



We had high hopes when Genachowski took over as chairman, but his tenure has been a string of disappointments:



•He failed to make broadband more affordable and accessible.

•He passed toothless Net Neutrality rules.

•He signed off on the destructive Comcast-NBC merger.

•He pushed the Bush administration’s failed media ownership policies in spite of overwhelming public opposition.

We can’t afford another FCC chair who cares more about AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Rupert Murdoch than about you.



Tell President Obama: Pick an FCC Chair Who Will Fight for the Public

Tea Party boycotting Fox News



The paranoia that Fox News created is turning against them, as tea party activists are boycotting the network for being too far left.



A group of tea party activists who are upset over Fox News for, in their view not investigating Benghazi enough and supporting immigration reform, are boycotting the network.


This is the group’s second boycott, and they are claiming that they are taking down Fox News as punishment for becoming a leftist outlet, “Firstly, the ratings numbers. Despite the much shorter lead/advertising time, at first I was quite disappointed to see what seemed to be only an 8% drop in the ratings on Thursday, the 1st night. A number that slight is difficult to average out because ratings fluctuate within the the margin of error, but 8% seems about right. Then looking over the numbers, we see that FOX is continually lower now than it had been before the first boycott. What has and is happening seems clear; of the 22% that walked away during the 1st boycott, it seems 10% – 12% never went back. That means the current 2nd boycott thus far is doing almost as well as the 1st one, except that the balance of the numbers past the 8% never stopped boycotting – they just went. Curiouser and Curiouser. We’ll see how the weekend shapes up; the numbers should be out by Monday or Tuesday at the latest.”



To show you how far off of the ledge these folks have fallen, they had this to say about Bill O’Reilly’s ratings, “In related developments, media is now starting to laud O’Reilly’s ratings, even though they are half of what they were two years ago. IMO this is due entirely to their displaying approval of FOX now that it has gone left, essentially abandoning FOX’s core audience that made them wealthy, an act of unconscionable, cold-blooded betrayal.”


The group’s objective is to, “To restore the same scrutiny to the Office of the President by the media that was enjoyed by presidents past like Richard Nixon, and presumably with the same results.”


The tea partiers want Fox News to go far right, and they believe that this will lead to the impeachment of President Obama. (In their view, Obama should be impeached for Benghazi.)

Ironically, many of the activists who are outraged about Benghazi probably got their information from Fox News. Fox created this paranoid audience, so it is no surprise that like Frankenstein’s monster they have turned on their creator. There are many, many reasons why Fox News is on a downhill slide of decline, but going too far to the left isn’t one of them.


What this boycott is really about is that Fox News demonized the black president and Hispanics for years, so a segment of their audience is in full blown rebellion because Fox execs suggested that it might be a good idea to tone down the immigrant hate by a couple of notches.



The tea partiers view this as a move to the left, when it reality it was a slight hat tip to demographics and reality.


The juiciest turn of the worm is that the very hate Fox News nurtured and grew, is now trying to destroy it.

Who Owns You?

“We raised a lot of money and mobilized an awful lot of people, and we lost, plain and simple,” says David. “We’re going to study what worked, what didn’t work, and improve our efforts in the future. We’re not going to roll over and play dead.”




 The World’s Most Powerful People

The goal has always been, Charles says, “true democracy,” where people “can run their own lives and choose what they want to buy, choose how to spend their money.” (“Now in our democracy you elect somebody every two to four years and they tell you how to run your life,” he says.) Both Kochs innately understand that–unlike the populist appeal of their fellow midwestern billionaire Warren Buffett and his tax-the-rich advocacy–their message of pure, raw capitalism is a much tougher sell, even among capitalists.

So their revolution has been an evolution, with roots going back half a century to Koch’s first contributions to libertarian causes and Republican candidates. In the mid-1970s their business of changing minds got more formal when Charles cofounded what became the Cato Institute, the first major libertarian think tank. Based in Washington, it has 120 employees devoted to promoting property rights, educational choice and economic freedom. In 1978 the brothers helped found–and still fund–George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, the go-to academy for deregulation; they have funded the Federalist Society, which shapes conservative judicial thinking; the pro-market Heritage Foundation; a California-based center skeptical of human-driven climate change; and many other institutions.



All of these organizations, unknown to 99% of the population, and their common source of support, unknown to most of the rest, have provided the grist for conservative thinking since Reagan. It’s a measure of Koch’s success that 40 years after Richard Nixon was stumping for national health insurance, Paul Ryan’s Ayn Rand-tinged economics are just a little right of center. That the Supreme Court’s conservative majority led by Chief Justice John Roberts has issued a number of pro-property rights, anti-government decisions in recent years that read like they came straight out of a Federalist Society position paper. That when George W. Bush sought a watchdog on regulation costs, he appointed a top Mercatus executive. And none of this was accidental–it just took millions of dollars over decades of time.

‘No Irish Need Apply’ – Things The Right Wing Would Like You To Forget

This is not a new story. It’s actually quite old. The current anti-immigrant sentiment being levied against those who have Latin American roots is nothing new, only the target has changed. Let us go back to the time before the Civil War, when the Irish diaspora propelled by famine in Ireland, caused a flood of refugees to the United States. The city of Boston alone gained so many Irish immigrants it became a solid third Irish, and was nicknamed “the Dublin of America.” And this spawned a political movement dedicated to eliminating the rights of this group of people and their children. Today, we call this movement the Know-Nothings, but its foundation is the same as the modern-day Tea Party, a reactionary entity not in touch with compassion or reality.

The Know-Nothings and their descendants did everything they could to isolate the Irish. The first attempts to force religion into the U.S. Government came from these efforts, making the reading of Protestant Bibles (Irish were primarily Catholic) mandatory at public functions and in schools.



Then WE Irish woke up and realized that, while WE had been persecuted, WE had also become a sizable voting bloc. WE began to force their way into politics and won concessions. Within two generations, anti-Irish sentiment waned but prejudice was not eliminated, with the Chinese moving into position at the top spot… along with Italian, Poles, and any new immigrant group, all of whom became was potential targets. They were labeled as anarchists and communists, always some term to categorize them as anti-government extremists in order to push the hysteria

Now the same attitude – an elitist, entitled rhetoric – is circulating against those who have ancestors from Latin America. The irony is when people of groups previously persecuted, like Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin, jump on this bandwagon, for it was not that long ago they would have had the venom hurled in their faces… just as they throw it at Latinos today.

In the obituary of former House Speaker Tip O’Neill in 1994, the New York Times put this sentiment best:

He said the Democratic programs had created a broad middle class whose members had forgotten the many benefits they had received from government — in education and housing, for example — and wanted to pull up the ladder behind them.

While this was focused on government programs, it applies to immigration, as well. And what is truly ironic is, that as Bill O’Reilly spews his hate-filled, anti-immigrant rhetoric today, those who hail from Latin America will themselves one day be accepted and embraced, and some new group will fill the spot the Know-Nothings will rebrand as their newest target of hate.

It's time to STOP denigrating one another for it was said a long time ago "Be careful who you step on the way up, for they will one day return the courtesy when your on the way down"

Time to come clean!

 Gentle Reader,

It’s time for us Christians to catch a clue. The modern conservative agenda is anathema to everything it means to be a Christian. It’s based on Randian Objectivism, which isn’t a far cry from LaVeyan Satanism.

Let the current state of affairs speak for itself. The poor and destitute have suffered the most under laissez-faire capitalism. The rich and powerful have emerged predominantly untouched. Now, when it’s time for everyone to ‘tighten their belts’ as a result of ‘conservative’ policy, it’s the poor who will have to sacrifice. Many have nothing left to sacrifice.

The stock market is soaring. Corporations are making record profits. Resource inequality is at staggering levels. The wealthy are more than fine, and yet conservatives will not make them share the burden of the fiscal conundrum created by foolish policy, exorbitant greed, and excessive militarism.

We have been deceived for far too long. These are not the ways of Jesus. Feeding the rich and powerful while starving the poor and destitute is a recipe for spiritual disaster. The majority of Christians in this country are supporting just that, and we need to wake up.

We're not against the free market here. The free market has its place. When it fails large groups of people, as it often does, we must have a vibrant social safety net to compensate. And we need to make access to health care universal to all. Health care is not a privilege. To think otherwise is barbaric and selfish.

The modern conservative brand of Christianity likes to blame the poor. They call them 'lazy,' and 'a bunch of freeloaders who refuse to work.'. Did Jesus ever call the poor lazy? Never once. Demonizing the poor is not Christian. It's akin to an anti-Christ philosophy.  It's social Darwinism. The resounding majority of poor people are not lazy, and they don't refuse to work. They work harder to survive than most do in society.

Isaiah 10 and Jeremiah 22 are two examples of the prophets issuing harsh admonishments to wicked kings who abused the poor and marginalized. Conservative Christians insinuate that ‘it’s not the government’s job to care for the poor.’ They couldn’t be more wrong. They go on to imply that ‘the downfall of our great nation will be abortion and gay marriage!’ What a joke. Jesus said nothing about these two issues.

Jesus spelled out exactly what his priorities are in Matthew 25: 31-46. Conservative Christians would do well to learn those priorities. If the ‘downfall of our great nation’ occurs, it will be because we ignored them. It’s happened before: “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” ~ Ezekiel 16:49

The marriage of the Church and modern conservative politics has produced a dark and ugly entity, and it’s time for Christians to come out from its grasp.

 

And your reason for not speaking out?

How NOT to pick the next Pope

The Rock on which Jesus was speaking

After words - What about Peter?


Gentle Reader



Some are asking, quite rightly, what about Peter, in the verse of Matthew 16 " And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Mat 16:18 KJV)



There are at least three ways we can look at this verse as regards Peter. 1) That Jesus was speaking to Peter and naming Peter His successor. 2) That as Peter named who Jesus was "the son of the living God" and with the background of the rock speaking of Himself Jesus was telling the apostles His and the Fathers goal. 3)That the Rock being spoken about was the faith exhibited by Peter as shown to him by the Father.



Here is the first method of understanding this difficult verse.



The debate rages over whether "the rock" on which Christ will build His church is Peter, or Peter’s confession that Jesus is "the Christ, the Son of the Living God" (Matthew 16:16). In all honesty, there is no way for us to be 100% sure which view is correct. The grammatical construction allows for either view. The first view is that Jesus was declaring that Peter would be the "rock" on which He would build His church. Jesus appears to be using a play on words. "You are Peter (petros) and on this rock (petra) I will build my church." Since Peter’s name means rock, and Jesus is going to build His church on a rock – it appears that Christ is linking the two together. God used Peter greatly in the foundation of the church. It was Peter who first proclaimed the Gospel on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14-47). Peter was also the first to take the Gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 10:1-48). In a sense, Peter was the rock "foundation" of the church.



Another popular interpretation of the rock is that Jesus was referring not to Peter, but to Peter’s confession of faith in verse 16: "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." Jesus had never explicitly taught Peter and the other disciples the fullness of His identity, and He recognized that God had sovereignly opened Peter’s eyes and revealed to him who Jesus really was. His confession of Christ as Messiah poured forth from him, a heart-felt declaration of Peter’s personal faith in Jesus. It is this personal faith in Christ which is the hallmark of the true Christian. Those who have placed their faith in Christ, as Peter did, are the church. Peter expresses this in 1 Peter 2:4 when he addressed the believers who had been dispersed around the ancient world: "Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."



At this point, Jesus declares that God had revealed this truth to Peter. The word for "Peter," Petros, means a small stone (John 1:42). Jesus used a play on words here with petra ("on this rock") which means a foundation boulder, as in Matthew 7:24, 25 when He described the rock upon which the wise man builds his house. Peter himself uses the same imagery in his first epistle: the church is built of numerous small petros "living stones" (1 Peter 2:5) who, like Peter, confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and those confessions of faith are the bedrock of the church.

In addition, the New Testament makes it abundantly clear that Christ is both the foundation Acts 4:11 This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. (Act 4:11 KJV)



This is the stone,.... That is, this Jesus of Nazareth, by whose name the lame man was made whole, is that stone spoken of in Psa 118:22 by whom is meant the true Messiah, comparable to a stone, for his strength and duration, and usefulness, as a foundation and corner stone, in the spiritual building of the church; and yet notwithstanding is the stone.



For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1Co 3:11 KJV) and the head Ephesians 5:23 of the church. It is a mistake to think that here He is giving either of those roles to Peter. There is a sense in which the apostles played a foundational role in the building of the church For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.(1Co 3:11 KJV) And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; (Eph 2:20 KJV), but the role of primacy is reserved for Christ alone, not assigned to Peter. So, Jesus’ words here are best interpreted as a simple play on words in that a boulder-like truth came from the mouth of one who was called a small stone. And Christ Himself is called the "chief cornerstone" (1 Peter 2:6, 7). The chief cornerstone of any building was that upon which the building was anchored. If Christ declared Himself to be the cornerstone, how could Peter be the rock upon which the church was built? It is more likely that the believers, of which Peter is one, are the stones which make up the church, anchored upon the Cornerstone, "and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame" (1 Peter 2:6).



The Roman Catholic Church uses the argument that Peter is the rock to which Jesus referred as evidence that it is the one true church. As we have seen, Peter's being the rock is not the only valid interpretation of this verse. Even if Peter is the rock in Matthew 16:18, this is meaningless in giving the Roman Catholic Church any authority. Scripture nowhere records Peter being in Rome. Scripture nowhere describes Peter as being supreme over the other apostles. The New Testament does not describe Peter as being the "all authoritative leader" of the early Christian church. Peter was not the first pope, and Peter did not start the Roman Catholic Church. The origin of the Catholic Church is not in the teachings of Peter or any other apostle. If Peter truly was the founder of the Roman Catholic Church, it would be in full agreement with what Peter taught (Acts chapter 2, 1 Peter, 2 Peter).



To be continued . . . a lot more . . .

Pope resigns amid scandle

Gentle Readers,

Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger of Bavaria, the first German Pope since Victor who died in 1057 left office in a less than customary manner today. Unlike every one of his predecessors dating back to Celestine V who resigned in 1294 Gregory XII who resigned in 1414 to help end the Avignon schism he did not die in office.


Pope Benedict announced his resignation on February 11th and it stunned the Church and the world. Such an event had not occurred in nearly 600 years, over 700 years for one that resigned that was not under duress. Popes do not resign every day, it is not “normal” for those of us in the modern era. Benedict in his resignation letter cited his "lack of strength of mind and body" as his reason for resigning. After the lengthly suffering of his predecessor Pope John Paul II, who spent the last years of his papacy crushed under the weight of Parkinson’s disease and other illnesses leaving much of the day to day operations of the Church to the Curia led by Ratzinger, his friend and the head of the Office of the Congregation for the Faith, one could understand.

Benedict, now 85 years old, battling health concerns and under the increasing weight of scandals involving sexual abuse by clergy including Cardinal Roger Mahoney and Cardinal Michael Patrick O’Brien of the United Kingdom, the Vatican bank corruption and the “Vatileaks” scandal involving his butler resigned.

We probably know all of the factors that went into the resignation of Benedict. He is both lionized by Roman Catholic conservatives and vilified by those who resented his approach to the Church and its relation to the world. He seemed like a man out of his element as Pope, a contemplative theologian thrust by his office and relationship to his predecessor into the most high profile position in Christendom and for that matter in the religious world.

His legacy and impact will be debated and not really known for years because though no longer Pope he lives and his life story is not yet complete. The verdict of history and faith in the case of Pope Benedict XVI is not complete and it is foolhardy for one to attempt to access his Papacy until that life on this earth is ended. Likewise, it is unlikely baring the release of all information concerning Benedict as well as the various scandals in the church and his relationship to them and actions concerning them that we can know the full story.

I hope that Pope Benedict is able to continue his ministry as a former Pope in a manner that helps the Church heal and also be transparent. In this capacity it is possible that Benedict will have the chance to be a force for good that no Pope has ever had the chance, being the first to resign in so long.


A Final Blessing at Castel Gandolfo



Perhaps his resignation will be an inspiration to his successors as well as his fellow bishops not to simply remain in office because they can but instead attempt to listen to the Holy Spirit and the the people of God have to say. That being said there is the possibility that Benedict will become a “shadow Pope” influencing and dictating the course of the church remaining in a covent in Vatican City. I hope that will not happen. His words on his departure today and arrival at Castel Gandolfo if taken at face value indicate that he will be content to remain on the sidelines, but only time will tell. His story is not yet complete. As of now it appears that his departure is one of graceful humility and I pray that will be his legacy.



That being said it is up to the men that lead the Roman Catholic Church to be honest in dealing with the seemingly unending waves of scandal and corruption that seem to plague the Church. The time for cover ups has to end and the time for new beginnings, starting with repentance and renewal to begin.



Though I am not a Roman Catholic (any longer) I will pray for Benedict and whoever his successor may be. I do hope that whoever that man is will be able to lead the church through the coming difficult days in an open and transparent manner and help lead the church to the renewal promised by the Gospel and opened again in Vatican II. There are far too many crisis in the Church and the world not to pray for this.



I hope that the next Pope, like Father Andrew Greeley’s fictional contender for the Papacy Luis Emilio Cardinal Menendez y Garcia says in the novel White Smoke: a Novel About the Next Papal Conclave (New York: Tom Doherty, 1996; pp. 140-143)



“It must be admitted honestly that many of our people have a negative impression of our institution, as of course do many who know us only from outside the Church. They view us as harsh and unbending, as narrow and uninformed, as arrogant and unsympathetic. Are we prepared to say that there are no reasons to justify that view of us? Are we prepared to say that there is nothing in our manner, our style, our institutional organization, our narrowness of vision which has given them that impression?



I for one am not ready to say those things. I candidly believe that we are our own worst enemies because we have often seem to worship not the Father in heaven but our own institutional being. We should not, my fellow Catholics, worship the Church, we should not make the Church an end in itself. The Church clearly is only a means. When the means gets in the way of the end it has become the object of idolatry. When we seem to want to impose that idolatry on others, we appear to many to be religious imperialists. Are we so sure that we never act like idolaters and religious imperialists?”



I think that the new Pope needs to be able to admit this and in doing so liberate the Church to do the work of the Gospel.